Wildlife protection officers with meat and guns seized in a two-year investigation by the Ministry of Forests, Fauna and Parks. More than 150 officers were involved. (Ministry of Forests, Fauna, and Parks)Ministry of Forests, Fauna, and Parks / -

It started with a poster outside a bar in St-Georges-de-Champlain, a small village near Shawinigan, advertising a special dinner where clients could enjoy local venison.

The poster caught the eyes of local wildlife authorities in January 2014, and on Wednesday, a two-year investigation titled “Operation Twilight” culminated with one of Quebec’s largest crackdowns on two alleged poaching rings.

Roughly 170 provincial wildlife officers sought out 59 people this week — from hunters to butchers to clients and fishermen — seizing 55 kilograms of walleye, 70 kilograms of venison and 225 kilograms of moose meat along the way.

The suspects face a total of 320 charges and could face $700,000 in fines. The number of suspects and charges are expected to keep growing, Quebec’s Ministry of Forests, Fauna and Parks said on Thursday.

The charges are for illegally selling and buying moose meat, white-tailed deer and walleye; hunting at night; large game hunting with prohibited gear; and the possession of a quantity of fish superior to the daily quota.

Raids were mostly in La Tuque, Shawinigan and Trois-Rivières. Goods were also seized in Drummondville, St-Jérôme and Laval.

The investigation started small, based on activity at the bar holding the venison dinner, which led to a main suspect being singled out.

“We started documenting the situation and, little by little, noticed the network kept growing,” explained commander Gérald Desharnais, the regional director of wildlife protection in the Mauricie region, on Thursday.

Wildlife protection officers with guns seized in an anti-poaching operation on Nov. 23, 2016.Ministry of Forests, Fauna, and Parks

“We followed people and tried to track where the meat was being taken and where it was being bought,” said Jacques Nadeau, a spokesperson for the ministry. “From there we managed to link people together. We caught people hunting at night and out of season.”

Authorities said a butcher operating out of a small town near Shawinigan would cut, package and freeze the meat before it was sold.

Hundreds of individually packaged quantities of deer and moose meat were seized on Wednesday, as were three firearms, a vehicle, two boats and a commercial freezer.

According to Desharnais, the main suspect — thought to be the leader of one of the alleged rings — mostly hunted in the southern part of the Mauricie region, but would head north toward La Tuque when looking for moose.

The investigations moved slowly in part because of the seasonal nature of poaching — unlike selling drugs, Desharnais said, officers had to wait for the right times of the year to establish what was happening.

Eventually, investigators noticed the suspected ringleader would also go fishing in the Gouin Reservoir in La Tuque, a manmade lake known for walleye, Desharnais explained.

That led officers to a fisherman in the reservoir who is alleged to be the head of the second poaching ring. Authorities say the man used a motorboat with a fake floor to hide fish. It’s believed he illegally sold about 3,600 walleye yearly, Desharnais said.

“The two networks were operating in parallel, independently from one another,” Desharnais said. “But there was contact happening between the two main suspects, so to say.”

Nadeau expects the investigation to yield more charges and suspects. A large number of those facing charges are buyers. Samples of the meat are being sent to laboratories in Quebec City to be analyzed for potential matches with sellers.

The rest of the more than 360 kilograms of meat will be delivered to local food banks and charities in the coming weeks, Nadeau said, in time for the holiday season.

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